To Pull Back the Curtain on Shame in Medical Education, I Had to Start With Myself

The moment I made the error—an unfathomable vaginal laceration caused by my hands during the vacuum-assisted delivery—it felt as if a massive floodlight, centered right over my head, descended on me. All eyes in the room, aghast at my error and its outcome, bore straight through me. A rush of anxiety and fear flushed down my body, and I felt an overwhelming urge to disappear. So, I did. I slipped out quietly and eventually hid myself on other side of the labor and delivery unit, in a corner of a room, on the floor, behind a chair. That’s when the really painful feelings hit me. With an acute, dizzying sense of disorientation, I looked at myself, and I was aghast at what I saw: a broken, incompetent, unworthy resident who hurts patients. Before then, others had seen me—and I had seen myself—as a fairly strong resident, but I clearly had everyone fooled. My true colors and deeply flawed self were now on full display, and a rush of fears came into focus: What would others, particularly those I respected most, think of me? Would they trust me again? Who else would suffer from my incompetence? I plotted ways to leave the hospital completely unseen, and I wondered if I could return. In the days after, I isolated myself, disengaged from the world around me, and suffered quietly. It was brutal. I later learned that I was experiencing shame, an emotion that occurs when a person blames a triggering event (e.g., a medical error) on deficiencies of the self (e.g., overall capab...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Guest Perspective medical students residents shame Source Type: blogs